


Balance

by mylittleredgirl



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Episode Related, F/M, Relationship Status: It's Complicated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:15:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25131487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mylittleredgirl/pseuds/mylittleredgirl
Summary: “What would you have done?”Post-ep for “The Void”
Relationships: Chakotay/Kathryn Janeway
Comments: 19
Kudos: 59





	Balance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SquishyRogue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquishyRogue/gifts).



> Originally posted on tumblr in 2014. The prompt pic was [this screencap](https://66.media.tumblr.com/09b3940f790a10b26ac47bbb65422711/tumblr_inline_pk0pgshFFW1qfw225_500.jpg).

“I’ve been thinking,” she says in the dark. Her head is tilted back on her pillow, watching the expanse of stars outside her window instead of his face.

Chakotay keeps moving his fingers over her bare stomach, tracing out patterns. “You should let me know if you ever _stop_.”

He can hear Kathryn’s expression in just the change in her breathing, knows she’s rolling her eyes and quirking her mouth into something between a smirk and a pout. He knows her that well after all this time: seven years out there, as her loyal right hand, and a year of this, where his role is less defined. He’s comfortable with the rules remaining unspoken. They never sat down and drafted a charter, but they both understand: this is love but not romance, he always leaves well before morning, what they have in here doesn’t go past her bedroom door.

They do this—have sex—only when things are easy, when the journey is quiet enough to notice the itches that beg to be scratched, or when they’re high on victory and a nice dinner isn’t celebration enough.

This is the latter: celebrating their successful escape from a black and starless void and a fruitful—if brief—alliance. He doesn’t take it personally that her gaze has hardly left the window, that she was looking out there instead of down at him when she came shaking above him. He’s been sharing her with the rest of the Delta Quadrant for a long time.

“Chakotay.” His gaze moves up her body, over breasts and collarbone to her face. What he can see of her expression is focused, like she’s trying to pick out a specific star in the foreign space outside. “What would you have done if my way didn’t work?”

It takes him a moment to re-adjust to thoughts that aren’t about skin and sex and the way she smells. He feels too naked to talk about this. What they do in here hasn’t left this room; until now, the reverse was also true. “Why do you ask?”

Her expression gives nothing away. “Just curious.”

He doubts that. Kathryn’s questions are always layered. “Curious… if I’d follow your orders to the last?”

Her hand comes to rest on his, stopping him from drawing invisible lines on her skin. She looks at his face, for what feels like the first time all evening. “I’d like to know.”

He thinks about it for longer than he has to. He knows the answer. There’s only one stance he could take if their people were starving, if they’d run out of heat and deuterium and life support, if they had nothing left but hard choices. “I would do what we had to.”

“What _we_ had to?”

“You couldn’t take action, Kathryn. I know that.” In recent years, his role as first officer has become less about protecting her from outside forces, and more about protecting her from herself. She resents that, when she acknowledges it at all, but maybe that’s why she asked this question here instead of out there. In uniform, she needs to ensure the absolute obedience of her crew, starting with him.

Between them, alone, there are different kinds of loyalty.

He says, “I wouldn’t allow our crew to die.”

She nods once. The lecture she would spit out in her ready room doesn’t come. He watches the line of her throat move as she swallows between shallow breaths.

He waits for long minutes – three – five – for her body to soften before he moves closer, presses his mouth to her cheek and drapes his arm over her. She goes back to watching the stars; he goes back to watching her.

“What are you thinking?” she asks.

He can feel the late hour in the weight of his muscles, in how her warmth is pulling him closer to sleep. He breathes in the smell of her hair to hold him until the next victory, the next quiet night. “I’m thinking,” he says, stretching himself to sitting, “that I’ll see you in the morning.”

She kisses him and then breaks away with a smile that keeps him warm until he’s back in his uniform.

“Don’t stay up all night,” he advises, leaning over to rest his hand on her calf. “The stars will still be there tomorrow.”

He can’t see the details of her expression, but he can imagine it; he’s mother-henned her enough over the years to be able to predict the result. “You’re right, of course.”

“Sometimes.” Maybe it’s the uniform he’s wearing again, but he feels the need to say it now, given how well everything turned out: “I shouldn’t have doubted you.”

She sits up and reaches out her hand. He takes it. What she says is, “Goodnight, Chakotay,” but what he hears is all the things they haven’t said yet: that as well as this is working, as much as a solid dividing line keeps them and their command safe, sometimes she also wishes that he could wake up here.

“0800,” he says. It helps them both, the morning after, to see each other in uniform before they head to the bridge.

She settles back down in bed and promises, “I’ll pour the coffee.”


End file.
